Wednesday, November 4, 2009

The Difference

2 "kinds" of banana muffins. Believe me, baking soda makes a difference. Who knew it wouldn't only change the texture but the colour? You know what else gives you white banana mufffins? Using vegetable oil instead of butter. For a while I experimented with using vegetable oil as a percentage of the fat content, but at the halfway mark the muffins got very peely-wally and tasted a little odd. Back to the Faithful Recipe. Oh, except for the blueberries - I bought a great huge bag of frozen blueberries a while back, and I throw a handful of those in instead of chocolate chips now. My body has been saying NO to caffeine more and more over the last couple of years. Can you imagine? I still partake in chocolate, but I find that I enjoy fruit a lot more.

Does this mean I've finally grown up?

The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.- William Morris

Little details, big differences.

What I'd add to darling William's quote is that the ability to take an interest in the details of life is a measure of happiness in itself. I'm slowly pulling out of a very long-term depression, and one of the things that I notice best, and had missed the most, was the ability to care about anything. Yesterday I was at the second hand store, and I could actually muster up enough enthusiasm to buy some Christmas ornaments and candle-holders, and have the interior conversation about how to make things festive for the upcoming holiday. How long has it been since Christmas was anything but more work?

D is also for dent. In my head. The trunk of the car fell on me this morning, and there was blood everywhere. Nothing like a head-wound for a truly dramatic bleed!

9 comments:

Oh no! I got hit with a rock on my head once when I was a kid, and it bled so much I thought I was going to die. I didn't, so that made me have a more reasonable response when my boys collided and the youngest took the worst of it and needed the wound stapled together. Glad you're feeling more festive these days. I seem to be going in that direction myself.

I’m personally convinced in the existence of the soul. Just an aspect of faith for me, I suppose, or really, more something I intuit. It doesn’t diminish the physical in my estimation, but animates it. I sense integration, if you will. I’d say I carry a kind of Celtic perspective where this subject is concerned.My wife (who is very “earthy” and doesn’t get wound up around the axle of the spiritual like I do (she doesn’t dismiss it, but just has other things to do and other interests) claims to have had an “out-of-body” experience. Entirely unexpected and unprompted. I believe her. Her explanation is bereft of profundity. It’s more matter-of-fact. I’ve never had one and just as soon not, but I do suspect there is something to this phenomenon.

Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin said, “We are not human beings on a spiritual journey, but spiritual beings on a human journey.” This dude is too smart for me, but that sentiment seems about right to me. I’ve attempted to read some of his work, but it’s too esoteric for me. He was the bane of the Vatican in many regards, if I recall correctly. No surprise there. He exercised he own mind. I admire the contemporary Jesuits for this trait.

I guess I'd given up thinking about it for a long time because it was tying my brain in such knots, but watching myself and my clients "under the influence" of having a meridian stimulated, and seeing what kind of spiritual ramifications that can have... it's got me thinking again. Maybe my brain-knots are actually Celtic-knots. (grin)

A very interesting man, that M. de Chardin. I tried reading something of his a long time ago and it scared me off. Maybe it's time to have another go at it.

I really find that each meridian (Liver, Heart, Bladder etc.) has a "character", and each point along the meridian has a character too, a quality that it enables a person to manifest. So along with the physical benefits, acupuncture is a great tool for spiritual development.

I've had periods in my life when I've been stuck emotionally, like not too long ago when I was so angry that I could have killed a certain person, and I went to my chiro (who does acupuncture), and asked her to do some work on my Liver meridian, because it's the meridian that moderates both anger and constructive action. She needled Liver 14, Gate of Hope, and within 24 hours I was able to think more rationally about the situation without being sucked into my rage.

At this point, I'm pretty familiar with the points and meridians in a very general sort of way, but even before I knew anything, I responded just the same. It was pretty amazing when I started studying it and realized how direct the cause and effect was as I looked back on my earlier acupuncture experiences.

I tend to need a lot of maintenance work on my Lung meridian too, because it has a lot to do with grieving, as well as my ongoing asthma. Seems like they're inextricable.